Sarah Palin buttons were among many on display at the Feb. 16 Lincoln Day Dinner at the Four Points Sheraton in Ann Arbor. (Photos by the writer.)

“What do you say we bring a little Massachusetts home to Michigan?” Boonstra asked, referring to the recent Republican victory in that state’s U.S. Senate race. His question prompted cheers and applause from the crowd of about 150 people attending Tuesday’s Lincoln Day Dinner, at the Four Points Sheraton in Ann Arbor.

“What a difference a year makes,” Boonstra said, noting a resurgence of energy and enthusiasm among local Republicans. It’s a year that the GOP can win back the state House of Representatives, he said, adding that Washtenaw County needs to do its part. Currently, all four state legislative seats in the county are held by Democrats. “If we can do it in Massachusetts,” Boonstra said, “I think we can even do it in Ann Arbor.”

The annual dinner drew more than 20 elected officials and candidates for the August primary. Two gubernatorial candidates – Rick Snyder of Ann Arbor and Mike Bouchard of Oakland County – dropped by for the pre-dinner reception. Others at the dinner included Archie Brown, a Washtenaw County Circuit Court judge; Kirk Tabbey, chief judge of the 14-A District Court in Ypsilanti; as well as several candidates for state attorney general, secretary of state and state legislative seats.

On the federal level, candidates included Tim Walberg, former 7th District Congressman who was defeated in 2008 by Democrat Mark Schauer and who plans to run again; and Jack Lynch and Robert Steele, two challengers for U.S. Rep. John Dingell’s seat.

Marlene Chockley and Joe Fitzsimmons, who organized the Feb. 16 Lincoln Day Dinner, confer before the program begins.

Both Republicans on the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners – Jessica Ping and Mark Ouimet – attended the event, with Ouimet serving as emcee.

Ouimet, who’s running for the state representative seat in District 52, observed that a year ago there were many empty seats at the annual dinner. The crowd on Tuesday reflected renewed interest in the Republican Party, he said, giving credit for that to Ron Weiser, chair of the state GOP and founder of McKinley Associates in Ann Arbor. If Weiser had been able to attend, Ouimet said, he would have told the group that “it’s a different time, we’re going to do it in a different way, and have a different outcome.”

The event’s keynote speaker was Ken Braun of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a Midland-based free market think tank. Braun is also editor of the Michigan Capitol Confidential, the center’s bi-monthly print and online publication that covers state government.

Braun began his talk, titled “Learning from the Tea Party,” by asking how many in the crowd were looking forward to the November elections. When the applause died down, he cautioned that they shouldn’t be quite so optimistic. “These Tea Party people are not always synonymous with getting Republicans elected,” he said.

Braun, who’s done consulting for Tea Party groups across Michigan, described them as not the standard Republican or even conservative – and they’re not a cohesive group that’s organized by the Republican Party. To say that, he joked, would be “like accusing the Detroit Lions of organizing a Super Bowl parade.”

Tea Party members are angry, Braun said. And their anger at Barack Obama over adding to the problems that were there when he got into office could just as easily bite Republicans. But Republican leaders don’t yet realize that, he said.

Braun noted that the deficit was high under former president George W. Bush when the GOP held majorities in Congress, and that taxpayers were angry then, too. People see the federal budget exploding and know that someone is responsible. That makes them angry, he said – even more so when Republicans are in charge.

The situation is similar in Michigan. Former governor John Engler started out fiscally conservative. But during his tenure in office, Engler and the Republican-controlled legislature created a bigger, hungrier government – which left taxpayers, when the bottom fell out in 2001, just hungrier, Braun said.

Ken Braun, editor of the Michigan Capitol Confidential, gave the keynote speech for the Feb. 16 Lincoln Day Dinner.

What went wrong? Voters elected and re-elected these lawmakers, Braun said, then didn’t watch what they were doing, and didn’t hold them accountable for their actions. He said they shouldn’t worry about getting Republicans elected in November – they should worry about what happens after the election.

It’s up to voters to raise a ruckus when an elected official’s actions don’t line up with their words, Braun said: “Your politicians are not the leaders. You are.”

After his speech, Braun fielded several questions from the audience. Responding to a question about what the Tea Party wants – as opposed to what they don’t want – Braun drew a parallel to the 1994 mid-term elections, when anger against Bill Clinton’s reform efforts resulted in Republicans gaining control of both the House and the Senate. As Clinton shifted to a policy of accommodation, he said, that anger generally subsided. People in the Tea Party don’t want government leaders to make radical changes when things are working pretty well, Braun said.

Asked how the Republican Party can capitalize on the enthusiasm of the Tea Party, Braun said he didn’t think the Tea Party could be co-opted, calling them “enforcers.” They’re fiscally sane, everyday people who don’t particularly care about politics, he said. “They just want to be left alone.”

Later, a member of the Willow Run Tea Party Caucus stood up and told the crowd that they won’t allow the Republican Party to co-opt them. “What we want from you is to come and see us,” he said, and to listen to what they have to say. He invited candidates to attend the group’s regular meetings at the Big Sky Diner in Ypsilanti, but again said the candidates weren’t there to talk – they’d be there to listen.

Bill Bigler, of the Ann Arbor Patriots and the Washtenaw Campaign for Liberty, introduced himself and said the Tea Party was interested in three things: 1) fiscal responsibility, 2) a return to Constitutional government, and 3) a reduction in the size and scope of government.

Rick Olson, a candidate for the 55th District state representative, asked how many in the audience had attended a Tea Party event. More than a dozen people raised their hands. Olson said he’d gone to a Tea Party rally in Brighton, and was impressed by the people he met there, calling them patriotic and “kindred spirits” with Republicans. Following up on that comment, Braun likened the Tea Party members to Reagan Republicans,  and to the Republicans of the Contract with America in 1994.

In the final question of the night, Norma Sarns wondered what happens to people who are elected – people you know and respect – who then go to Washington “and it’s like they’ve gone to another land.” Braun said that they’ve “gone to a land where people buy them food.” Lobbyists and others treat elected officials very specially, and it’s natural that politicians don’t want to let go of that, he added. Everybody can be co-opted by the political system – it’s up to constituents to remind politicians of their priorities.

And again he reminded the audience: “They’re not the leaders – you’re the leaders.”

Rick Snyder (File photo courtesy of Snyder for Governor)

In the week of July 20, Snyder’s camp says, expect an announcement on how that business-friendly theme might be used in a gubernatorial campaign for the Republican.

And by business, he means the “C-Level” manager, the entrepreneur, the startup team. Make them happy by creating an atmosphere in Michigan that allows them to be successful. That means stop taxing them so much, stop regulating them so much, train them in how to be successful entrepreneurs – then the rest of the state’s economic puzzle will fall into place.

It’s what Snyder calls “helping the demand side” of Michigan’s unemployment problem. Help businesses find executives from Michigan’s rich talent supply, help create a business climate that favors them, then watch them succeed and dip into Michigan’s waves of unemployed.

“I would argue you’re helping the demand side even more by placing someone in a successful startup team, and letting them have an opportunity to be successful,” Snyder said in a recent interview with The Ann Arbor Chronicle. “Those are the people that are going to go hire the five and 10 other people.”

This is the formula that has worked so far for Snyder the businessman, so why not for Snyder the politician?

The Small Business Tune: Who’s Your Customer?

To understand how Snyder came to those conclusions, first look at both the early and the latter part of his career – when the music he played was “small business.”

Snyder was born in Battle Creek, but it was at the University of Michigan where he shined as a wunderkind in the late ’70s and early ’80s. He earned his bachelor’s, his MBA and his law degree all before he turned 23. From there, he used his newly-minted credentials for business at the Detroit office of the accounting firm of Coopers & Lybrand (now PricewaterhouseCoopers), where he rose quickly and was eventually put in charge of mergers and acquisitions in the firm’s Chicago office.

It was there, handling M&As for “30 to 50 different companies from various backgrounds every year,” Snyder said, that he began to form his lifelong opinions on how to make businesses more competitive. He saw them from “what the customer side looks like.”

Now, when Snyder thinks of “customers” in a political context, he is talking about the people trying to do business in Michigan. Government needs to treat Michigan businesspeople as customers.

“Michigan needs to change our attitude more, to be treating our citizens and businesses like customers and take a customer-centric approach to things, to say our goal is to create a more competitive playing field for our companies to thrive in and to do well,” Snyder said.

And that means, in general, the “customers” are always right. Or, if not, at least assume they are honest.

“Our tax system, our regulatory system should assume that most people are good and honest people, then deal with the exceptions,” Snyder said.

A story Snyder likes to tell is about a canoe rental company in Michigan that needs five separate licenses to do business.

The solution, however, is not to make special exceptions for some companies, he says.

Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, he said, is too focused on coming up with specialized incentives for companies to do business in Michigan – the governor’s lithium-ion battery initiative, for example, which offers tax abatements – but not addressing what he called “the fundamental issue, which is making us more competitive by fixing our overall business tax environment and our regulatory environment.”

So, if governor, Snyder would be a friend to startups. But what about the “other” kind of music – big business?

Bridging to Big Business

Well, he did help run a Fortune 500 company from 1991 to 1997. During his tenure at Gateway, the PC firm grew from a private $600 million business to $6 billion-plus publicly traded company.

But when it comes to his vision for running the big business of Michigan government, the solution can be found on the smaller, local level. The economic climate in Michigan is improving, Snyder said, no thanks to government, but rather due to local groups doing economic development work – groups like Ann Arbor SPARK, Southwest Michigan First, Techtown and Automation Alley. They’re working, he said, because they’re connecting C-Level talent with companies.

SPARK does receive local government support in the form of tax-increment financing through the Local Development Finance Authority – nearly $1 million in the next year. And last month Ann Arbor’s city council authorized supporting SPARK with $75,000 from its general fund after writing a check for $50,000 the previous year. The Washtenaw County board of commissioners is also considering a tax that would raise $250,000 annually for SPARK and SPARK East, its Ypsilanti satellite office.

For some of its programs, though, SPARK is paid for its services directly by the people who use them – as in a program Snyder helped institute at SPARK called  Shifting Gears. It’s a training program geared to help unemployed and underemployed middle-level managerial technical people, mainly from the auto industry. They have good resumes, but they need to learn how to switch from a large company to a small company – how to become involved in a startup. Snyder was a mentor to one of the Shifting Gears clients.

“The last time I met with him, just last week, he was leaning forward, bouncing, smiling, talking about how he was excited to get out there and try to find a job even though his underlying company had gone bankrupt and his situation was worse financially,” Snyder said.

These are the kinds of programs, Snyder says, that should be implemented statewide.

The Business of Governing

OK, but what has Snyder done for Michigan? Well, in 1997, Snyder decided to return to the Great Lakes State. He had a specific mission in mind – to use his expertise to launch startups – first with Avalon Investments Inc. and then with Ardesta LLC. Avalon invested in traditional tech companies, while Ardesta invests in, and helps launch, nanotechnology and microsystems companies.

Between the two, Snyder says, he has created 420 jobs in Michigan and 1,253 nationwide. The figures are based on the number of jobs at companies in which Avalon and Ardesta have made investments.

Still, Snyder’s potential candidacy suffers from lack of name recognition outside the business community. Snyder said, however, he’s not worried.

“I’m excited. I think we’re well-positioned,” he insisted. “We’re starting with strong fundamentals.

“All there is is fear and frustration that everyone has today. I don’t know of anyone happy about how Michigan is, so the starting point is that you’ve got to have a vision that will get people excited about the future.”

About the author: Veteran journalist Howard Lovy has focused his writing the last several years on science, technology and business. He was news editor at Small Times, a magazine focusing on nanotechnology and microsystems, when it first launched in Ann Arbor in 2001 as the media arm of Ardesta. His freelance work has appeared in Wired News, Salon.com, X-OLOGY Magazine and The Michigan Messenger. His current research focus includes the future of the auto industry and the U.S. criminal justice system.

Melodie "Mel" Gable reacts to the vice presidential debate on Thursday.

For the 20 or so Republican women who gathered Thursday night to watch the vice presidential debate, the event was all about rooting for their candidate – and having some laughs while they were at it. Actually, a lot of laughs.

The women, who met at the Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites on Boardwalk and graciously allowed The Chronicle to join them, enthusiastically supported Sarah Palin while gleefully deriding her Democratic opponent, Joe Biden.

The banter began from the moment Biden started speaking, when he turned to Palin and said what a pleasure it was to meet her.

“In your dreams!” someone hooted.

At minimum Palin’s responses were met with nods of approval, often with applause and shouts of “Get him, Sarah!” or “You go, girl!” Biden’s comments were usually mocked – “Is he for real?” or “He’s a liar!” And they were decidedly unsympathetic when he got emotional, tearing up during one of his responses. That evoked laughter and more banter: “Oh my God – he’s gonna cry! and “He did the choking thing!”

Even a verbal slip by Palin – once referring to her opponent as “O’Biden” – met with support. “O’Biden – I like that!” someone quipped.

Mel Gable, who’s chair of the Washtenaw County Board of Canvassers, provided much of the comic relief during the debate, calling Biden a “gaffe machine” and challenging his responses.

Applause often came in response to Palin’s positions that clearly resonated with the group, including the need to lower taxes, regulate Wall Street, rein in government spending and support a strong national defense.

Several women said it was great to get together with like-minded people, where you could be candid about your political views without being smacked down by angry liberals. And not everyone who attended was Republican. Claudette Cornell said she has been an Independent, but supports the McCain/Palin ticket. She was impressed with Palin’s performance during the debate.

“I thought that she was very well-prepared, and well-informed about critical issues,” Cornell said. “She spoke to the heart of middle America, as well as to America at large.”

Kim Porter-Hoppe, chair of the local Republican Women’s Club and of the statewide Alliance of Black Republicans, organized the event, which began with dinner at the hotel restaurant. Afterward, she said it was a good debate for Palin. “She did a great job – I’m even more excited now.”

Mel Gable (in yellow) and Karen McConnell, far right, provide comic commentary during Thursday's debate.